The Rural-MD Scholars Program is just one facet of UMB’s Eastern Shore Pathways initiative to bridge the rural health care gap in the state starting in middle school.
Photo: Amanda Bair on the Eastern Shore. Photo by Matthew D'Agostino
Growing up as the daughter of the only general surgeon in Cambridge, first-year University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) student Amanda Bair saw firsthand the shortage of health care providers on Maryland’s rural Eastern Shore. Her father often worked late nights and missed family and community events to care for his patients.
“It was important to him that he do this because we lived in a medically underserved community where people often could not get the health care they needed and deserved,” Bair said. “This inspired me to want to return to Dorchester County to continue his legacy and work to decrease the physician shortage on the Eastern Shore. Patients will then have more access to health care and rural physicians will be able to dedicate more time to taking care of themselves and their families.”
Bair has received support from two institutions to do just that: She was awarded a scholarship from the Dorchester Chamber of Commerce for her undergraduate degree in biology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and UMSOM chose her as a Rural-MD Scholar to attend medical school tuition-free for four years.
Dorchester Chamber Scholarship
Bair said the chamber scholarship not only had a huge impact on her college career by alleviating the stress of tuition and room and board, but the check-ins she had every semester with the chamber’s president and CEO, Bill Christopher, also made a difference.
“Mr. Christopher always responded with praise for my accomplishments and encouragement for the upcoming semester,” she said. “It meant a lot to know that there were people like Mr. Christopher back home who believed in me, and this support motivated me to work hard and pursue excellence every semester.”
Christopher called Bair a “standout” student and emphasized that it is important to invest in Bair and other Shore students because they “are our future workforce and our future community leaders.”
“If we do not invest in them, we threaten our future resiliency,” he said. “We currently export more talent than we bring into the community, and we need to correct that imbalance.”
Rural-MD Scholars
Bair is part of the second cohort of students in UMSOM’s Rural-MD Scholars Program, which, in partnership with the University of Maryland Medical System, aims to educate medical students to gain a deeper understanding of rural medicine and train physicians who will practice in underserved areas of Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
The program offers immersive experiences including interactions with rural patients and practitioners, procedural and didactic learning, and a deep dive into the social determinants affecting rural health. Students are mentored by rural physicians and have clinical clerkships and rotations on the Shore.
After medical school and residency training, they begin their medical careers on the Shore, committing to a minimum of four years of service in the community.
“The Rural-MD Scholars Program shared my values, motivations, and goals,” said Bair, who currently is interested in women’s health and reproductive health care. “The program not only incentivizes students to work on the Eastern Shore with scholarship money, but the faculty also promises to train us specifically to care for the unique health care needs on the Shore and provide the emotional, personnel, and resource support we will need as we begin our careers.”
Health Professional Shortage
The Rural-MD Scholars Program is just one facet of the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) Eastern Shore Pathways initiative to bridge the rural health care gap in the state starting in middle school and extending through graduate health care education.
Maryland’s Eastern Shore is made up of nine counties with about 450,000 people calling it home. Almost the entire Shore is designated by the federal government as a medically underserved area and as a health professional shortage area, according to the Maryland Rural Health Association. There is a shortage of primary care providers, medical specialists, dentists, and mental health providers. The result is that some people fail to obtain the health care they need.
Four Eastern Shore counties are among the top five in Maryland for infant and child mortality, and life expectancy is as much as seven years shorter in some Eastern Shore counties than in top-ranked suburban Montgomery County.
All five of the state’s counties with the fewest primary care physicians per capita are on the Eastern Shore, with Caroline County having the greatest need with only one provider per 2,500 residents.
The expected opening in 2028 of the new state-of-the-art University of Maryland Shore Regional Medical Center in Easton is expected to increase the need for health care workers on the Shore.
UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS, grew up in Caroline County and says the University is “uniquely positioned” to address the health care access challenges that disproportionately affect Maryland’s rural counties.
“To do this — to make real, lasting impact — we not only need to continue to educate world-class health care providers, but we also need to create and maintain a pipeline that draws leading clinicians and practitioners to the Eastern Shore,” he said.
To support UMB’s work on the Shore, Jarrell’s lifelong friend, Lawrence Hayman, co-founder and co-owner of H&M Bay, Inc., made a transformational $18 million bequeath in honor of their friendship.
Health Care Ecosystem
UMB’s educational ecosystem on the Shore includes early exposure in middle and high school to health care careers through community organizations and school partnerships; mentorship and academic advising by UMB faculty and health care professionals; scholarship support, clinical placements, and incentives to stay and serve in Shore communities; and student support and alumni tracking to ensure career success and local retention.
“The work with middle and high school students represents how UMB is connecting to all the good that community organizations are doing to expose young people to health care careers and light their spark to pursue them on the Eastern Shore,” said Greg Bowden, UMB’s chief philanthropy officer and vice president. “We are creating the pathways that lead them to the University and back to the Eastern Shore to practice, live, and improve the health care options in our communities. Many of these partner organizations are supported and led by UMB alumni who have invested in creating the talent pipelines that lead them back to the Shore as the next generation of health care professionals.”
For example, UMB alumni work with groups such as Introduction to Careers in Healthcare (ITCH), an organization of 100 medical volunteers who introduce and recruit Shore youth to careers in health care, and the Eastern Shore Area Health Education Center (ESAHEC), which connects young people and students to training opportunities on the Shore. UMB has hosted educational events attended by students from ITCH and ESAHEC and is communicating with the organizations about the University’s educational and financial support opportunities to encourage students to attend UMB and pursue health care careers.
Returning Home After Graduation
Even though Bair is the daughter of a general surgeon and the granddaughter of a longtime rural surgeon in Pennsylvania, she didn’t always think she’d be a doctor.
As a child, she thought surgery was the only option in the medical field, and that wasn’t her calling. It wasn’t until fifth grade, when one of her friends said she wanted to be a pediatrician, that her eyes were opened to the many diverse job opportunities in medicine.
She then explored medicine through extracurriculars at her school, including participating in a four-year Project Lead the Way Biomedical Sciences Program.
“At the same time, I was asking my father more questions about his job, observing the relationships he had developed with patients, and realizing the pivotal role he played in the community as a result of his profession,” Bair said. “He taught me that practicing medicine is an expression of genuine care for the entirety of a person, including one’s physical, emotional, and social needs.”
Bair plans to not only practice medicine back home after her residency but also to remain involved in the Rural-MD Scholars Program as a mentor.
“I want to care for the people who raised me and supported me and my dreams,” she said. “I also want to do local outreach at the middle and high school level so that I can help to inspire the next generation of Eastern Shore doctors.”
Christopher said this is exactly the kind of pipeline needed on the Shore and why scholarship support is necessary.
“The health care provider shortage is not unique to the Shore, but being rural does provide additional challenges,” he said. “It is a wonderful place to live, work, and play, and those who grew up and have family here are the ones most likely to understand and appreciate that. If we can help remove financial barriers, we are more likely to grow and retain them locally.”